Page 172 of Oleander

“Please don’t leave yet,” he asked me, his voice a little desperate. “I don’t think...just please stay a little longer.” He pressed his mouth to mine, and I nodded, touching my forehead to his.

“Okay.”

I felt him relax a little. He pulled back and gave me a tender sort of smile. “I need to go change for dinner.”

I watched him retreat to his bedroom and close the door. When I walked into the living room, Xavier turned, some dark cloud coming over his features as he glanced in the direction of the bedrooms. I gave him a forced smile and went to sit across from him on the couch.

“Oh, why don’t I go fetch us some aperitifs,” Gideon said, standing. Then, quite purposefully, he disappeared from the room and left Blackwell and I alone.

His stare was as black as I remembered it, a void as deep and dark as his name, though it sparkled with something sly. Like he was enjoying a joke I didn’t understand.

He was still objectively good-looking; healthy deep tan and black thick hair, chiselled jaw dusted with dark stubble. It wasn’t hard to understand Cas’s attraction to him. Now or back then. Gideon’s neither. I imagined reams of women and men falling over themselves to gain Xavier Blackwell’s attention.

Personally, I’d never loathed another human more except maybe the man who’d killed my parents.

“How have you been, Jude?” he asked, relaxing into the couch a little more. His gaze was intense as he stared at me, and I wondered if he looked at everyone the same way. If it was just me, did that mean something? I’d had a glass of wine, so there was a boldness in my veins as I stared him down. I was also an adult now; when the last time I’d seen him I’d been a frightened little boy.

“Pretty fucking wonderful until you showed up,” I replied.

The look in his eyes didn’t change, but he let out a small huff of laughter. “Cute. I can see why he likes playing with you.”

The chill spread from the top of my head all the way down to my toes.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Before he could answer, Gideon came flouncing back into the room carrying a bottle of champagne. He pulled four glasses from the drinks cabinet behind the couch and proceeded to pour us all a glass. Cas arrived a few moments later looking freshly showered and wearing a black shirt and trousers, which were cinched in quite dramatically at his waist. His sleeves were rolled up, and strips of thin gold hung from his wrist and neck. The only colour he wore was the white splint around his right hand. The effect was an almost feminine look, chic and classic. I knew I was staring, but I didn’t care.

He lifted a flute of champagne and downed it in one. “Can we go now?” he said, looking at his watch. His manner was easy, casual, and I wondered where the panicked, desperate Cas from the hallway ten minutes ago had gone.

I can see why he likes playing with you.

The staff at Isabel seemed to know Gideon well, shaking his hand and ushering him straight past the people waiting to a circular table near the centre of the high-ceilinged space. I felt uncomfortable almost immediately. It wasn’t the sort of placeI’d ever come on my own, stuffy and formal, and with lots of gold and mirrors for people to look at themselves in. I watched as Xavier pulled out Cas’s chair for him, bending to kiss the top of his head as he sat in it. I took the seat directly opposite and lifted the wine list, determined to get very, very drunk.

When Blackwell chose Cas’s wine for him, I put it down to his very obvious snobbery, but when he ordered his starter and main course for him too, I felt my face rearrange itself. The glasses of wine and champagne only emphasised the other emotions swirling inside of me.

“Maybe he doesn’t want the lamb,” I said, causing everyone to look at me, including the waiter.

Cas shot me a warning look, while I glared at the pervert across the table.

“He always has the lamb when we come here,” Blackwell told me dismissively. “He’ll have the lamb.”

“Yeah, well sometimes change is good. Variety being the spice of life and all that.” I dropped my eyes to my menu. “What do you think, Cas? I think the fish looks good? I’m going to have the fish, I think.”

“And I’ll have the short rib,” said Gideon, handing his menu back to the waiter.

“So it’s two lamb, a fish and a short rib.” The waiter was looking at Blackwell for confirmation and it only pissed me off even more.

“That’s it,” the pervert smiled. “Thanks.”

Gideon began talking about some opera he’d seen in Italy which I tuned out, focused only on the stiff way Cas sat and the very determined way he avoided looking at me. I couldn’t work out why it was strange; all I knew was that it was unlike any version of Cas I’d ever seen before.

The Cas I’d known these last few weeks had been some version of this one here: dulled, careful, almost hesitant. A far less dangerous version of the boy I’d known at Deveraux. Like a knife that had gone blunt.

Blackwell liked the sound of his own voice, that much was evident over three very rich overpriced courses, and so it was hard to find an opening in the conversation where Caspien might have entered it. But even when the talk turned to subjects I knew he was interested in, he said very little. I counted six or seven words in total throughout the starter and main courses. He drank his wine, ate his food and spoke only when someone asked him a direct question. He was nervous, clearly, and I could have put it down to my being there – me, the guy he’d been fucking for the last few days – sat across from his oblivious partner if not for the thing niggling at the outer edges of my understanding.

By the time the dessert menus were set down in front of us, I was drunk. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, hold myself back a moment longer.

“You going to order his dessert for him, too?” I said as Xavier picked up the menu card and scanned it. I set my own menu down. “Why don’t you order mine for me, too, while you’re at it? Go on, try and guess what I like.” I sat back in my chair and stared at him over the rim of my wine glass (some £400 bottle of white that tasted like water by this point). When he levelled a nasty look at me, I knew the meaning wasn’t lost on him. To my right, Gideon let out a jittery laugh while Cas cleared his throat.